Where are all the patched champions?
One of the great things about LoL is the endless possibility for expansion. There can always be new heroes, new maps, new game modes, etc. Those things need to fit well into the game to really serve as expanded material, though. If no one’s playing those modes/champions, they have virtually zero effect on the game.
That’s exactly what I’ve been seeing in the new champions. They get played for their launch week and the subsequent free week and then fall completely off the radar. I almost never see Olaf in game any more, and when I do I tend to smash him. Malzahar? Never. Akali? Less than never. Garen? Rarely. Kennen? Nope. Mordekaiser? Occasionally. The only patched champions I see on a regular basis are Shen (who is in nearly every game), Ezreal (same, almost every game), and Pantheon (only because Heartseeker is crazy broken right now).
If you take a look at the champion list at LoL Base, you’ll see that the only one of the champions I never see that has a positive win/loss ratio is Mordekaiser. The rest are negative, in some cases drastically so, which says to me a couple things. First, and most obviously, those characters suffer from some kind of serious design flaw. Though I think several of the champions I mentioned are solid (Kennen and Garen for the most part), the others have trouble providing serious support to a team. It could be that players just haven’t figured out how to play these new champions, but most of them are old enough that someone, somewhere should be playing them or singing their praises, and that’s not really the case.
It’s too early to say where Kog’Maw will fall, but if he follows the current trend, we’ll see him for two weeks and not much more.
Posted in: league of legends
Tags: akali, champion design, garen, hero design, Kennen, malzahar, mordekaiser, new champions, olaf
Just the high ELO I guess. I’m mid-somewhere and I see Garren and Mal almost every game, Olaf every other game and Kennen or Akali every 3rd. Mord I don’t see very often, which I find surprising because he seems fairly strong to me.
I’m guessing they just don’t cut it with the right balance of def/off/supp mixed together that the high elo chars seem to have.
I haven’t seen Akali in a long time, and she’s one of my favorite champs. She’s almost as OP as Katarina. I LOL whenever someone plays as Malzahar, because we always pwn them even though they “think” they are good.
Could not disagree with this article more……it isnt the champions that is underpowered or whatever it is the players there are alot more noobs then good players around thats why the statistics are what they are. I can play any champion without feeling subpar against any of the others.
Gonna have to disagree with you there, Simon. While yes, player skill is very important, there are tier lists for a reason. Certain champions just aren’t as good as others. Yi is an extreme example but an example nonetheless. It takes a huge amount of farming, like 25-30 minutes worth, just for him to contribute in any meaningful way. Even then, it’s one stun and he’s dead. If he’s smart enough to take cleanse, two stuns. I know people like to crow about AP Yi and how good he can be but relative to other casters he just doesn’t have what it takes.
All of that said, the article is written from my perspective, and certainly different rules apply to different ELO brackets. As player skill starts to even out, meaning players are making less and less fatal mistakes, you start to see the gap between certain heroes and others.
Totally agree with this article. This seems to be a common trend in LoL over the last couple champ releases. Unfortunately I think it’s just part of the FOTM nature of the LoL community. Case in point: I have played Nidalee since her debut. At debut many played her and failed because they lacked the ability to truly harness her skill set. She was called OP because of this for several weeks until people figured out how to counter her….. then nobody played her for well over a month. Then about 2 months ago I start seeing Nidalee everywhere! It seems the noobs finally figured out how she works and then she becomes the FOTM….. and then gets nerfed repeatedly. This has happened to many, many champions (udyr, kat, ap shaco, tryn, ap ezreal….). Oh and same thing with panth, played for 2 weeks… forgotten… now he’s OP and broken! (for the noobs out there he has been since release, although less broken now cuz you can’t reposition his ult with flash).
Obviously the characters are broken, not the players.